A Sunday Adventure

Today was beautiful, but a little cool, not quite beach weather. We decided go go someplace I had been wanting to visit for about thirty years, the Socrates Sculpture Garden in Astoria. We took the subway. One of the nice things about taking the subway out to Queens is how spectacular the views are.

We walked several blocks along Broadway and passed an astonishing array of restaurants representing the cuisines of nearly a dozen countries.

We got to the Socrates Sculpture Garden. Unfortunately they were between exhibits. But it’s a such a pretty spot sort of half way between being industrial wasteland and being a beautiful bit of nature.

We could just spot Columbus Circle across the East River.

I never thought that I would ever eat grapes that I picked next to an abandoned factory in Queens.

I loved how this rock looked like wood.

We then walked the block and a half or so to

the Noguchi Museum. But first we stopped off at Costco which was across the street. Their liquor store was having tastings of cucumber vodka, a very fancy tequila and an aged rum. They gave us tastings of each one on their own and in a small cocktail. We were in a very good mood when we went into the museum.

The Noguchi is a great place to go after a difficult experience, say like after sitting shiva, or a bad break up. It’s a very soothing place.

There were times when I preferred the wooden supports to the sculptures themselves.

We were then ready to go. The museum shifts your understanding of objects in space, so you leave the museum slightly different than you were when you went in.

This taxi garage/repair shop is a block or two away from the museum.

I loved the shapes that our shadows made on the sidewalk.

Queens is full of anomalies like this sweet house

that is next to a factory building.

A few blocks further east we came upon this treasure of a building. You have to look past the Rite Aid signage.

I love the nautical themed decoration. I have no idea what this building might have been in it’s previous life.

We ate a spectacular dinner at a Greek restaurant and then came home after a delightful day.

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Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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